Thursday, February 27, 2014

Wikipedia: The badger game is an extortion scheme, often perpetrated on married men, in which the victim or "mark" is tricked into a compromising position to make him vulnerable to blackmail.

There are two competing explanations for the origin of the term badger game. One explanation is that the term originated in the practice of badger baiting. Another says that it derives its name from the state of Wisconsin (the Badger State), where the con allegedly either originated or was popularized.

This con has been around since at least the early 19th century. There are several variations of the con; in the most typical form an attractive woman approaches a man, preferably a lonely, married man of some financial means from out of town, and entices him to a private place with the intent of maneuvering him into a compromising position, usually involving some sort of sexual act. Afterward an accomplice presents the victim with photographs, video, or similar evidence, and threatens to expose him unless blackmail money is paid.

The woman may also claim that the sexual encounter was non-consensual and threaten the victim with a rape charge. It can also involve such things as the threat of a sexual harassment charge which may endanger the victim's career.

In the days before photography or video, the accomplice would usually burst into the room during the act, claiming to be the woman's husband, father, older brother, etc., and demand justice. The con was particularly effective in the 19th and earlier 20th century when the social repercussions of adultery were much greater. A famous person known to have been victimized by the scheme was Alexander Hamilton, whose adulterous affair with Maria Reynolds was used by her husband to extort money and information from him.

Variants of the con involve luring the mark with homosexual acts, underage girls, child pornography, bizarre sexual fetishes, or other activities deemed to have a particular social stigma.

Another form involves accusations of professional misconduct. In an example of this form of the con, a "sick" woman would visit a physician, describing symptoms that required her to disrobe for the examination, require the doctor to examine the genitals, or ensure similar scrutiny from the doctor. During the examination an "outraged husband" or "outraged father" would enter the room and accuse the doctor of deviant misconduct. The "sick" woman, who is of course part of the con, takes the side of her accomplice and threatens the doctor with criminal charges or a lawsuit. This form of the badger game was first widely publicized in an article in the August 25, 1930 edition of Time magazine.

Non-sexual versions of this con also exist, particularly among ethnic or religious groups with strong social taboos; for example coercing a Mormon to gamble or drink alcohol.

The badger game has been featured as a plot device in numerous books, movies and television shows.

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Note: Cases such as this one, in which a child is the
perpetrator of but one actual murder, yet shows an inclination to commit
further murders, are included in our inventory, not to inflate the numbers, but
because cases involving young killers are exceptionally important in
understanding the phenomenon of serial killing.

Henrietta Weibel, 15, was accused of attempting to burn to death two babies (first the Kelly baby, later the Franck baby) on two separate occasions.

***

FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 4): Henrietta
Weibel, aged 15, was arrested, on a charge of attempted murder and
incendiarism, she having on Wednesday night, attempted to burn the infant child
of Mrs. Franck, a boarder at the Leopold Palace Hotel, and afterwards made two
endeavours to set fire to the house. The baby was lying asleep when the girl
set fire to the bed clothes. Another servant extinguished the flames, but the
little child was nearly suffocated. The girl confessed her guilt, and said she
had a mania for burning children and houses. It is said that last spring she
attempted to burn the baby of Mr. Kelly, of Tremont, and that she was formerly
employed by Uhling, the brick-laden coffin conspirator.

FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 4): Henrietta Weibel, who set the
bed on fire in a West Farms [in the Bronx, New York] hotel with the view of
destroying Mrs. Frank’s infant, was examined on Saturday by Police Surgeon
Loomis. She told him that she had no motive for her crime. She loved the child
dearly. But seeing it sleeping, she thought it would be nice to see it burn,
and instantly fired the bed. But then ran out of the room. As she closed her
door, smoke entered the little sleeper’s lungs, and it gasped for death. Henrietta relented, and was about to snatch the child from its danger, but
something, she said, seemed to drive her from the spot, and half bewildered she
ran down stairs singing. She said she would not hurt the little darling for the
world, but that she could not control her action. Dr. Loomis believes that
Henrietta is insane. Justice Wheeler has ordered a medical examination.

Note: The original typographic presentation has been
preserved. This article gives Henrietta's age as thirteen rather than fifteen. Only further research will help determine which might be correct.

FULL TEXT (Article 3 of 4): So many startling phases of
crime crop out from time to time that it seems almost impossible to keep pace
with them in any attempt at analysis. One of the most recent of the strange
cases was that of Henrietta Weibel, the baby burner. The idea of a little girl,
thirteen years of age, cherishing a passion for the burning up of babies is something
awful to dwell upon. But insanity steals into the brain of little girls as well
as into the brain of grown people, and there can scarcely be a doubt but that
Henrietta Weibel is insane.

A HERALD reporter called yesterday the store of Louis Stern,
No. 294 First avenue, to ascertain some facts about the girl. Henrietta had
been for the month previous to the 2nd of July a domestic in Louis
Stern’s family, and while she was there most signally distinguished herself. On
two different occasions she made free with the money drawer, spending the fifty
cents she appropriated in procuring a supply of candy, which she lavishly
distributed among her female acquaintances. On another occasion she actually
contrived to secure to herself, out of Mrs. Stern’s pocket, while that lady was
attending to household affairs, two ten cent stamps. Later in the day, while
with a friend in the little park opposite Dr. Tyng’s church, she pulled from
her pocket a stick of candy with a twenty-five stamp attached, and throwing it on
the ground, exclaimed, “Ain’t I lucky? Here’s not only lots of candy, but a
quarter dollar.” These little raids upon the money drawer cased Mrs. Stern to
send for

HENRIETTA’S MOTHER,

who, on arriving, sadly upbraided her erring daughter,
telling her that she had promised to stop doing those bad things. Henrietta got
mad with Mrs. Stern for sending for her mother and was resolved to have
revenge. On the 2d of July, while Mrs. Stern was bathing her baby, she was
startled by hearing the breaking of a pane of glass in the rear room. Henrietta
looked as innocent as a child and wondered what the young ruffians outside were
trying to do. Mrs. Stern again applied herself to the baby, but suddenly
another pane went into the fritters with a loud crash, and immediately after
three different panes were knocked into pieces. Mrs. Stern now went to the rear
of the house and closed the shutters, and Mr. Stern journeyed up to an
adjoining roof to see where were concealed the rascally boys that were breaking
his window. The shutters being closed, Mrs. Stern occupied herself once more
with the baby, but was very shocked with a series of bangs against the window
panes, which terribly alarmed her. she then went into the street, and, being
joined by a detective and two officers, the rooms were examined, after which
the officers went out to the yard to reconnoitre. No sooner had they got
outside than again the glass in the window went

FLYING IN ALL DIRECTIONS

Attracting the attention of the neighbors in the adjoining
houses, and thus gathering a crowd in the street. No one was now in the back room but Henrietta, and it was not long before
a tad of sweetmeats that was on the mantelpiece went spinning on the floor and
the glass or a picture hanging on the wall was cracked though not entirely
broken. The police gave it up as a bad job, and questioned Henrietta as to her
knowledge of the extraordinary occurrence; but the girl stoutly denied all
knowledge how the thing was done, saying that she suspected it mast have been
them bad boys or a ghost. She was dismissed from Mr. Stern’s house that
evening, however, and she admitted to a friend of hers in Seventeenth street
that she had had a jolly lark at Stern’s; she said she had a lot of bits of
brick concealed up her sleeves, with which she scared the wits oat of the whole
of them. Mrs. Stern says that on one occasion Henrietta told her that a quilt
been stolen from a clothes line in the yard but that next day a neighbor found
it in the cellar of the house. The quilt was not yet quite dry and Mrs. Stern
pat it out on the line again. About half an hour after Henrietta again told
Mrs. Stern that the quilt had a second time mysteriously disappeared and that
it was the strangest thing she had ever known. Mr. Stern descended to the
cellar, and after a short exploration by the aid of a few matches that
discovered the quilt in a corner and took it away with him. Henrietta looked as
unconcerned as she had herself put it there. The Sterns have, beside the baby,

A LITTLE BOY ABOUT THREE YEARS OLD,

who was always in the habit or steeping with
the girl in charge or the children. The little fellow after the first night be
slept with Henrietta most positively objected to sleeping in the bed with her
again and began to complain constantly of a pain in his foot. The parents
treated this lightly, made him sleep with the girl for some time afterwards,
but his father had frequently to carry him in the middle of the night, the
crying with the pain in his foot. It seems that Henrietta had frightened the
little fellow by threatening that she should surely cut his foot off. The day
Henrietta was discharged Mrs. Stern’s baby got quite sick and the doctor had to
be consulted to relieve it, and the following day the little boy got sick and
had also to receive medical assistance. Mr. and Mrs. Stern rejoice to think
that they got rid of this insane little girl, even at the expense of fifteen
panes of glass, the loss of a jar of sweetmeats and the breaking of the glass
in a picture frame.

But Henrietta took an this very quietly, and
went home to her mother’s without shedding a single tear. In the rooms
adjoining her mother’s, at No. 418 East Seventeenth street, dwell Mr. and Mrs.
Dometion and their five little children. Mrs. Dometion is the housekeeper for
the tenement house, and has been very much offended that the HERALD should have
stated, a few days since, that the tenement house is not quite what it ought to
be. The place is cleanly enough; but there it as doubt but that the air which
one has to breathe in ascending the stairs to the top floor is not that of a
pretty garden, where the perfume of the flowers gladdens the sense of smell.
Anyhow, Mrs. Dometion had her quota to add to the story of

MISS HENRIETTA’S QUEER DOINGS.

Henrietta stayed round about the house all
day on the Fourth or July, looking out of the window at the boys throwing the
firecrackers, and amusing herself by pinching the children, perhaps, to make
them cry. Mrs. Stern swears Henrietta used to pinch the boy. In the afternoon
Henrietta took Mrs. Dometion’s little girl, about two years old, and her own
little sister, into her mother’s room, and having got them in she deliberately
lit a few matches and set fire to the dress of Mrs. Dometion’s little girl.
Henrietta’s little sister began screaming, and Henrietta herself went to the
head of the stairs and began calling for Rob, her own little brother, who at
the time was playing in the yard. Mrs. Dometion hearing the children’s screams
at once rushed into the Weibel’s rooms and began screaming, too, when she saw
her.

CHILD ENVELOPED IN FLAMES.

With a mother’s bravery the folded the child
in her own dress and rolled her on the floor until the flames were extinguished
and saved me child. She showed the reporter the charred dress yesterday, and
among other thanksgivings which she uttered she was glad she had sweet oil in
the house to ease the pains of the burnt child. But Henrietta looked on, Mrs.
Dometion says, with annulled visage, and when asked about the matter quietly
said that “it was Rob who did it.” Henrietta’s little sister, however, who was
an eyewitness of me lighting of the matches and that setting fire to the dress,
told the whole truth. The whole truth did not disconcert Miss Henrietta in the
very slightest degree. Yesterday Mrs. Wiebel went to Tremont Jail to see
Henrietta, start clinging to the unfortunate maniac. There as another daughter
younger than Henrietta, about whom all concur in saying that she has already
shown

SIGNS OF INSANITY.

This series of acts of Henrietta, with the
circumstances attending them, point conclusively to the deduction that she is
insane. No human being at her age could possibly be so callous to the enormity
of the crimes she was perpetrating or trying to perpetrate and be in her right
senses. But never, on any occasion, as all those who know testify, showed the
slightest feeling after the discovery of her strange doings. Mrs. Sterns says
that as a servant she was willing and ready very and cleanly. The story of her
doings when left her home, after the occurrences above narrated, has been
already published.

FULL TEXT (Article 4 of 4): The disciples of the theories of
total depravity of morbid impulse in explaining dark but purposeless crime may
either of them claim evidence in support of their pet theory in the
circumstances leading to the arrest of a young girl at No. 418 East Seventeenth
street yesterday morning. The officer who executed the summons was from the
Thirty-fourth precinct, and the charge was defined to be attempted murder, and
incendiarism. Henrietta Weibel had been a domestic at Leopold Appell’s Hotel,
West Farms, for a few days. She had not been cheerfully industrious, but until
Wednesday last she had manifested no fiendish proclivities.

On that day, however, she stealthily proceeded to a room on
the second floor, where the baby of Mrs. Frank – a boarder – was asleep in its
cot, and shortly afterwards the alarm of fire was raised, and the hurried rush
up stairs by the alarmed mother revealed the fact that the infant was enveloped
in flames. Happily it was rescued uninjured, but half suffocated with smoke,
from which, after medical assistance, it was slow to recover.

A few hours afterward smoke was discovered issuing from the
dining room closet, where the table linen was kept. And still again on the same
day some wearing apparel in a hall closet was discovered ablaze. It did no at
once cccur to the proprietor that the girl was the incendiary: but on his
suspicions being aroused he sharply questioned her, and she at one and
unhesitatingly confessed to the crime. She said she couldn’t help doing it;
that whenever she say a baby asleep she wanted to burn it. It having been
ascertained that she had six months since attempted to burn a baby belonging
to Mr. Kinney, of Tarrytown, Mr. Appell had the girl arrested.

Yesterday evening a reporter proceeded to No. 418 East
Seventeenth street, with a view of investigating, if possible, the moral
influence of the girl’s home. After some difficulty the wretched dwelling was
discovered on the second floor of a rear and rank-smelling tenement house. The
stairs that led up to it were foul; the room was comfortless, and seated on a
rickety chair was Mrs. Weibel herself – an overflowing woman as to shoulders
and waist, with large dark eyes and a sensuous lower jaw. The reporter stated
his errand, whereupon the lady, who was stitching an article of fine cambric,
became partially dissolved in tears, and spasmodically rehearsed her daughter’s antecedents, as follows:

“She was always a bad girl, was Henrietta – a very bad girl.
I have five children. I was left a widowtwo years since. Henrietta is thirteen years and seven months old, and
not fifteen, as the police report states. I was about to become a mother when
my husband died. I could not look after Henrietta properly, and she began to go
out at night among loose girls and stay till eleven and twelve o’clock. When I
was sewing for a baker near she was so cunning as to get all my earning before
the work was done, and when I took it I had no money to get. Oh!” cried Mrs.
Weibel, “she is a terrible bad girl, and if she has been guilty of trying to
burn a baby I hope they will punish her all they can.”

The mother furthermore stated that she had placed Henrietta
in a juvenile reformatory twelve months since, but that she ran away and
subsequently “hired herself out out” in Westchester county.

~ THE ACCUSED IN HER CELL. ~

The little girl, against whom rests such a terrible
accusation, is at present continued in the lockup of the Thirty-fourth Police
precinct, at Tremont. A Herald representative called there yesterday afternoon,
and on intimating a desire to see the juvenile prisoner was at once conducted
down stairs by the Sergeant in charge. The would-be baby cremationist was found
in a large, well-lighted cell, and as she lay coiled up, as it were, on the
board used for a bunk, with a folded blanket answering the purpose of a
pillow, her childish face and almost infantile form were sufficient to
challenge the credulity of the visitor as to the identity of the youthful
poisoner. Her facial; expression is by no means unprepossessing, and as her
large, lustrous hazel eyes looked responsive to a kind inquiry of the Sergeant,
her young face seemed to light up with a confiding smile, which it would be
difficult for one morally depraved to counterfeit. The girl, who as very neat
and tidy in appearance, does not seem to be more than twelve years old,
although, according to her own statement, she is between fourteen and fifteen.

“Henrietta,” queried the writer, “is it true that you tried
to burn a baby at West Farms?”

“Yes, sir,” was the prompt and apparently ingenious reply.

“What could have prompted you to attempt such a wicked
deed?”

“I don’t know, sir; something told me to do it.”

“Would you not have been sorry had you succeeded in killing
the child?”

“No, sir, I don’t know that I would.”

“Then you don’t seem to like babies?”

“No, sir.”

~ ANOTHER ATTEMPT AT BABY BURNING. ~

“Was that the first time you ever tried to burn a child?”

“No, sir. When I was living with Mrs. Kinney, at Tarrytown,
I had a mind to set fire to the baby, but I didn’t do it.”

“How long did you live with Mrs. Kinnery?”

“I was there a month and two weeks.”

“Did Mrs. Kinney discharge you then?”

“No, sir; it was the first place I ever was in, and the work
was too hard for me; it was chamber work I had to do?”

“Are your parents living, Henrietta?”

“My father is dead, sir, but my mother is living in
Seventeenth street, New York; my father was a tailor; and mother is a
dressmaker.”

“What did you use in setting fire to the bed where the baby
was lying as West Farms?”

“Nothing but matches, sir.”

“Do you know that you are charged with a terrible crime, and
have you thought of what is going to become of you?”

At this question Henrietta appeared not to comprehend its
meaning, but after a few seconds she seemed to take in its full import, and
quickly raising herself from the recumbent position which she had maintained
until now, she bust into a flood of tears, sobbing out: “I feel so sorry; I am
such a wicked girl. I’ll never do it again. Oh! My poor mother cried so when I
left her last. She has always had a good name, and now it breaks my heart to
think that I have brought her into disgrace. I did not think of heaven or of
death, or else I wouldn’t have done it.”

“You haven’t always been a bad girl, have you?”

“No, sir: I always went to school and to Sunday school.”

“What Sabbath school did you attend?”

“On the corner of Twenty-second street and Fourth avenue, at
Dr. Crosby’s church.”

After offering a few words of consolation to the childish
heart which was convulsively apostrophizing a mother’s sympathy and love, the
writer took his departure, saddened by the excessive sobs of the youthful
prisoner.

[“A Fiendish Girl. – A Child of Thirteen with a Mania for
Baby Burning – The Mother’s Testimony – An Interview With the Youthful
Prisoner.” (from New York Herald), The Atlanta Constitution (Ga.), Aug. 5,
1874, p. 2]

Note: Cases such as this one, in which a child is the perpetrator of but one actual murder, yet shows an inclination to commit further murders, are included in our inventory, not to inflate the numbers, but because cases involving young killers are exceptionally important in understanding the phenomenon of serial killing.

FULL TEXT: Berlin, April 7. – There
is an extraordinary parallel of the Dusseldorf outrages at Saarbrucken (Rhenish
Prussia), but in this instance the perpetrator is a 12-year-old girl, Kathleen
Riefer, who has confessed to the killing of a four-year-old infant, and to
inflicting savage injuries on fourothers.

The body of the murdered child was
found in March, carefully and skilfully hidden in a hollow near a disused
cemetery. In the next few days a four-year-old girl was found distracted in
waste ground with throttling marks on her neck. Then in quick succession three
others were found similarly treated.

Riefer has maintained stubborn
silence to the police questions, and has refused to give the motive. Her
parents are excellent citizens.

Monday, February 10, 2014

The orthodox myth about female violence is that it is: a) a
response to male violence, or, b) a result of what social constructionists call
“social stressors.” The myth is false. This selection of cases provides
examples of female violence directed, in most cases, towards female children.
(For a discussion of the feminist “belief in the inherent-non-violence of
women” see: The central myth of MISANDRY: “the inherent non-violence of women”

"Mrs. Elizabeth P. McCraney, the third wife of Mr. Mc. (who
was also her second husband,) is accused of poisoning her husband's daughter,
Huklah, a beautiful girl of 17, and now that this murder is out the people
believe they shall trace no less than seven mysterious deaths to her agency,
including her former husband."

This serial killer of seven persons was executed by
beheading. She murdered the parents of the man she loved because they objected
to their union. Four other adults she murdered before she married a widower,
murdered his children and was finally brought to justice.

Inez
Smith, 15: “My sister and I have laid awake all night crying over the whippings
she has given us. She began to whip us as soon as she came to the house. She has often grabbed my hair and thrown
me to the floor, and when I was lying flat upon my back she beat me with a rope
and stick until my back and legs and arms were black and blue. Then she pounded
me with her arm until I was so sore I could not move.

I saw her grab Alice and put her hands in boiling water.
Alice cried, but my step-mother kept her hands in the water. Alice fell to the
floor, and the skin pealed off her hands when my step-mother let go of her.
Another time I saw my step-mother put Alice’s hands on the table and hold them
there. Then she took a hammer in one hand and pounded Alice’s fingers
until Alice cried and fainted away.

My sister Katie is six years old
and a cripple, and could not walk when my step-mother came to our house. Once
she grabbed Katie and swung her
around the room with one hand and beat her with the other hand. She struck
Katie over the arm awfully and my father said that she broke Katie’s arm.”

The stepmother hanged her
step-daughter, a little girl of four years of age, on a tree in the garden. She
then ordered her stepson, aged ten, to say he had murdered his little sister. The boy refused, whereupon the inhuman
stepmother seized him and placed him in a large oven, where she baked her
bread. The boy was roasted to death over a slow fire. She then suffocated a
third stepchild, aged nine, with a pillow, and strangled the fourth, aged
seven, with her own hands.

One
of the atrocious crimes in the police annals of the city have just come to
light. Mrs. Annie Grabant confessed that she murdered her two stepdaughters,
who were burned to death in the home, No. 136 Homan avenue, Wed night. Mrs.
Grabant is at a hospital being treated for her injuries which are severe,
Frederick Grabant, the husband of the woman, was a widower when he married her
six years ago. He had two daughters from the first the second Mrs. Grabant was
jealous of the girls and the neighbors say, abused them. She not only beat
them, but would, it is said, sear their bodies with hot irons; make them take
nauseous concoctions and whip them till they fainted if they made an outcry,
thrust them out of doors with little clothing on in the winter time and subject
them to the tortures of hunger by making them sit by unfed while her own four
children ate their meals.

Mrs.
John Stallion and two sons by a former marriage murdered Alice Stallion, her
step daughter, aged sixteen. The boys held Alice while her mother broke her
skull with a poker. The body was then thrown in the James river.

1903 – “Prenzlau Step-Mother” – Prenzlau, Germany
The woman tortured her five-year-old daughter to death in a series of unbelievably cruel acts.

Mrs. Hennie Yates, thirty-six, and daughter, Floy Farris,
fifteen, charged with the murder of Ligon Yates, twelve, and Ida May Yates,
ten. They were the step-children of Hennie and the half-siblings of Floy.
Children drowned in creek near home at Troy, Tenn. Mrs. Yates will give
no other reason for committing the crime than: “They made my life miserable.”
The woman is apparently rational, realizes the enormity of her crime, but does
not in any way show that she is remorseful. . The little girl cowered in a
separate cell as far away from her mother asshe could get. She declares
she is afraid of her mother and assisted in the murder only after she had been
threatened with death by her parent if she refused.

Mrs. Albert Steele, of Muskegon, Wisconsin, murdered her
11-year-old step-daughter out of jealousy for her husband’s love for the child.
The murder took place in 1915. Other women have done such things for the same
reason, but Mrs. Steele went about her business in a fashion that was unusual.
She tied the girl to a chair, blindfolded her and then poured acid down her
throat. Then, in an effort to simulate a botched abortion in order to give an
explanation for the death as well as providing support for a false allegation
of incest to be used after the “abortion” was discovered, the step-mother,
mutilated the corpse and threw the naked body in an alley, partially covering
it with sand. Mrs. Steele was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

“The girl, 16, after being beaten, was burned with a red hot
poker and made to walk barefoot in the snow was forced to drink poison, the
evidence disclosed. The post mortem Examination of the body revealed 54
wounds.”

Step-daughter had predicted own death, died of strychnine
poisoning. Mrs. Strome was suspected of being a serial killer (former husband
and sister-in-law died of “mysteriously”). She was convicted of the girl’s
murder and died in prison not long afterwards.

“‘Yes I killed him [her 6-year-old stepson]. I didn’t love
him and I hated his father.’ … ‘No, he wasn’t mean, but he was always in the
way.’ That is the excuse she gives, and to her it seems sufficient.”

“The officers declare that the girl did not die from
drowning as a result of being pushed into the water but say that the child was
struck over the head with some kind of a blunt instrument that caused
hemorrhages of the brain and her death.”

Mrs.
O’Loughlin was found guilty last night of slaying her stepdaughter, Leona, 10,
whose battered body was found in Berkeley Park Lake, Oct. 17. The child had
been fed broken glass, struck on the head with a tire iron and her body hurled
into the lake, the state charged.

“Mrs.
Florence Stoddard, aged 20 years, was sentenced to imprisonment for twenty-two
months in the house of correction upon an admission that she had used a hot
poker [an iron stove-lifter, actually] to brand the bodies of her two small
stepchildren. The husband originally lodged the complaint and when the police
made an investigation they found thirty-six scars on the body of the
10-year-old stepdaughter and twenty-six scars on the person of the 6-year-old
stepson.”

Murdered a
husband & 2 teenage step-daughters. She was convicted of the 2
child-murders.

1939 – Anna Louise Sullivan – Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Serial Killer)
She murdered her second husband; attempted to murder her third husband and his two
sons and daughter, leaving one son dead, the husband crippled and the daughter
very ill.

Mrs.
Martin, a waitress from Montgomery, Alabama, admitted slaying her mother, three
small daughters and two of her five husbands with poison. She also fed ant
poison once was her stepson. He is still alive though paralyzed.

Saturday, February 1, 2014

On September 17, 2013, Russian law enforcement officers were
involved in a shootout in Stavropol with a middle-class family, killing the
only man present, Roman Podkopaev (35), a dentist. His wife Inessa Tarverdiyeva
(46), a former nursery school teacher, her 25 year-old daughter Viktoria
Tarverdiyeva (25). The couple’s 11-year-old daughter, Anastasia, according to
police, “actively took part in all crimes.” Later Podkopaev’s sister, Anastasia
Sinelnik, was also arrested.

Over a period of six years, the family of serial killers
murdered at least 30 people. Victims included a “boy, 7, was shot in the head
while his sister was stabbed 37 times. Two teenage girls had their eyes gouged
out in horrific torture routine,” reported by the east2west news Following her
arrest, investigators videotaped an interview with the clan’s matriarch Inessa,
in which they allowed her to handle unloaded rifles to demonstrate re-enact
some of her murders.

It is thought that most, if not all, of the murders were
associated with theft of property.

Feb. 17, 2008 – 2 victims, dead – In
Aksai gunmen assassinated Zlydneva Michael, the chief of information security
department of the Federal Drug Control, and his wife.They were shot in their own home, and then finished off with
knives.The killers stole coats, a jacket and a
TV tuner.

Jul. 17, 2008 – 2 victims; 1 dead, 1
injured – In Aksai region on the federal highway members of the gang shot the
car in which rode Rostov Alexey Sazonov and Yulia Vasilyeva.Sazonov died, and Vasilyev was badly injured.The killers stole a purse with a driver’s license, passport
and a lady’s handbag.Later, the girl who was
left disabled, said she heard a woman’s scream: “to strive for it!”

Mar. 10, 2009 – 2 victims, dead – on
the outskirts of Novocherkassk bandits broke into the house and killed two
people there.They shot them with a “Saiga”
carbine and then finished the off with a knife.The
killers took from the vicyims’ the passports, laptop, camera, camcorder,
women’s boots, coats and men’s jackets.

Jul. 8, 2009 – 3 victims; dead – On
the sidelines of the federal highway “Don” in Aksai district of members of the
gang committed a massacre - Lieutenant SWAT Nizhny Novgorod Dmitry Chudakov,
his wife and two young children.The bandits
stole killed camera, laptop, hairdryer and money worth a total of 43.5 thousand
rubles, while somehow leaving gold jewelry behind.It was the most lucrative crime committed by the gang.Within two months, investigators announced the
disclosure of the crime.As it has been wrongly
accused of a resident of the Aksai Serenko Alex, who spent two years in jail.
The only evidence against him were the results of
ballistics.The Ministry of Justice expert
believed the weapon used to killSerenko
and Chudakov was a rifle that was also used to kill least three other crime
victims in the area. In fact, conclusions of the examination were wrong.According to media reports Chudakov were killed by a
members of the Tsapkov gang, yet the patrons themselves were members of that
gang. Already well-known throughout the country, having already been identified
as the killers Serenko, then came to be called the “Amazon Gang”
(Russian: Банда «амазонок).

Sep. 19, 2012 – 2 victims; both dead
– In Novocherkassk gunmen killed two private security employees as they
answered an alarm signal at a dental clinic. The killers used police service weapons – a submachine gun and
two pistols.

Nov. 29, 2012 – 1 victim, dead – In
Novocherkassk bandits entered the house of a resident of Novocherkassk Vadim
stretcher for robbery.The man began to chase
the robbers, but was killed.He was shot from a
gun stolen from a private security workers

Mar. 16, 2013 – 1 victim, dead – in
Aksai members of the gang killed traffic inspector Nikolai Kutsekon who came
out of the apartment to the street when he heard his car alarm sounding.He saw suspicious people near the car, tried to detain
them, but was mortally wounded.

Apr. 8, 2013 – 2 victims: 1 injured,
1 dead – in Novocherkassk on the outskirts of the city, next to the grocery
store, the bandits shot “car chop” [?] employees, who came to check why the
alarm went off.Injured driver Nikolai Korsunov
could leave, and his partner, Yuri Statsenko died in hospital.The bandits shot at them with a weapon stolen from employees
of private security.

Apr. 24, 2013 – 1 victim, dead – in
Aksai district of bandits was killed by traffic inspector Andrew Jurin, who
late in the evening decided to overtake a car.When
he left the house, the gang participants shot him at point blank range.They tried to break into the house, but the door was closed,
the wife and child of the police hid there.The
bandits retreated, taking nothing.

Sep. 8, 2013 – 2 victims?, dead – in
Aksai bandits broke into the private house, killed the hosts and stole food.After the bandits left the house they were noticed by
employees of private security firm named Shakhova and Lagoda who were passing
by.The security team hailed the suspicious
people near “Gazel” vehicle, and those immediately opened fire on the police.Shakhova was killed and Lagoda was wounded in the arm,
but managed to open fire on the bandits, killing and wounding Podkopaev
Victoria Tarverdieva.

***

Feb. 18, 2016 – hearing at Rostov-on-Don Regional court.

Oct. 26, 2016 – “In court Inessa Tarverdieva of the "Gang of
Amazons" told how she kill the children of SWAT Officer Dmitry Chudakov”

Following are newspaper articles discussing the British
branch of the international men’s rights organization founded in (April?) 1926
and whose headquarters were located in Vienna: Aequitas Weltbund für Männerrechte.

***

FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 3):

“Distressed Men” Want Equality!

“Wake up, Men!”

“Safeguard your Rights.”

“All you men who are handicapped by the excesses of
emancipation of women, organize yourselves in the World League for the Rights
of Men.”

--Extract from an appeal to men of the world to join the
Aequitas League of Vienna.

***

As a recent divorce case in America it was reported that the
wife, who was suing for divorce and alimony, was already receiving substantial
sums by way of alimony from her two former husbands! The sums were such as we
should consider a respectable fortune in this country, and certainly enough to
keep her in luxurious comfort for the rest of her life. She had, in fact, done
well in the marriage market and solidified her holdings at the top of the
“boom”! not content, she was asking for more. It is a curious example, perhaps,
but one that shows how the law of the country works for the benefit of the
woman. In more ways than one does the law of America – and of this country for
that matter – favour the wife in married people’s relationships. Generally, it
is incumbent upon the husband to maintain his wife after they have separated,
and where the husband is to blame there is justice in this attitude.But how
often is unhappy marriage the result of unsuitable temperaments? In such as
case, husband and wife, for their unwise choice, are equally to blame for the
clash, and the separation when it comes, but the husband has still to pay
alimony. Is that the just attitude? It prompts a query that will shock most
people in this country, and cause apoplexy almost to those staunch old folk who
regard our marriage customs and laws as the unalterable pillar of life itself.
Are our standards wrong?Are they based
on a wrong conception of what marriage should be? Instead of being in the van
of progress, an example for the whole world, in reality are we living in the
Middle Ages of blinded vision and stilted outlook? Dreiser, in his recent book
on Russia, which country he visited some months ago, devoted a most interesting
section to the marriage customs of that country. There, we are given to
understand, men and women really are equal. They get equal pay for equal work,
equal holidays, women are expected to work alongside men and serve in the Red
Army. What is of supreme interest to the subject under discussion, however, is
their marriage laws. When a wife, who generally is an outside worker employing
a domestic to do her housework, is undergoing a confinement the State sees that
she gets the best attention possible, and pays her well, for the Soviet
realizes that in the children lies the hope of the country. That is a system
that in theory many wouldclaim to be
vastly advanced to ours. The drawback is that officially the child is regarded
more as State property than that of the parents. But, “’till death to us part”
has no place in the new Soviet order. Either party in Russia can secure divorce
quicker than purchasing a railway ticket. All that is necessary is for the
complaining party to go to the local Soviet office, make the complaint, and get
his or her ticket stamped “Single” again! Then, the children being the joint
responsibility of the parents, and each having equal chance to work for equal
pay, the parents have to keep themselves and pay equally towards the upkeep of
the children! that, according to Dreiser, is the ideal way in “idealist
practical” Russia, and he finds such in the system to commend. We do not
comment, or much less approve, or much less approve, the virtues or drawbacks
of the Soviet way of doing things. We give it to show the extreme contrast
between our views of marital relationships and alimony and the views in a
country in an experimental stage, where the “ideal” system is being sought
after. [Note: Dreiser’s account did not reveal the absurd excesses of female
privileges. For a look at how the Soviet system really worked in this period,
see "A Dictatorship of the Eternal Woman Has Been Declared": TheSoviet Alimony Racket – 1927”]

Many a man in this country, or America, or other places
where laws are similar, who is having to pay for a wife who is wife in name
only, and who feels he is being unjustly treated, will view with kindly outlook
with a system. Many a man who, unaware of his wife’s extravagant ways, is
called upon to pay her debts will see much justice in it. In Austria there must
be many men who are smarting under the marriage laws, for an “Aequitas” League
has just been smarting under the marriage laws, for an “Aequitas” League has
just been started. It is a “World’s League for the Rights of Men.” Its
headquarters are at Vienna, and it is calling a great mass meetingof men to discuss means whereby the
authorities can be prevailed upon to alter present laws, so as to grant
equality to men! The arguments used in the appeal for members are that our
matrimonial laws, so as to grant equality to men! The arguments used in the
appeal for members are that our matrimonial laws, probably more so than
Austria’s and other countries, are oppressive to men and favour women to quite
an unjustifiable extent. The argument proceeds that the laws live unchanged
from the days when it was necessary to grant women special legal protection,
for they had no political rights whatsoever and were debarred from most
professions. “To-day,” says the appeal, “women share equal political rights
with men, each branch of human pursuits is freely accessible to them, and it is
a well-known fact, under the existing state of affairs in the labour market,
that women have far better chances to earn a living than men. And what means
marriage to an unprincipled woman? Nothing else than an alimony business to
which the man is unconditionally and relentlessly exposed. This also
sufficiently explains the general aversion to marriage by men. We have
daughters, however, and do not desire that men should not be prevented from
marriage by the existing conditions. The distress of men is the cry of the day
everywhere! Men of all civilized countries will assemble at a Congress to be
held in Vienna, Austria, from September 25th to October 1st,
1929, in order to protest against such an unjust state and discuss means
whereby the authorities could be prevailed upon to amend and alter the obsolete
laws in connection therewith.”

Now in all this there is a grain of commonsense, and matter
of sufficient interest to men and women to start a sex war blazing, and if the
promoters of the League had stopped at that one could have admired them for
their zeal, even if one could not agree with their opinion. The appeal,
however, ends up with an exhortation to men to attend this maating at Vienna,
and concludes with the lines: --

“No passport visa fees and reduced fares to Austria!”

“All facilities for a comfortable stay inAustria!”

In that the real object of this campaign? Is it just a piece
of clever “Visit-our-country-for-your-holidays” propaganda? Ironically enough,
would the Austrians be glad if the “distressed” men were also to take their
wives as a further contribution towards the tourist profit campaign? It might
not be so, but it sounds suspiciously like it.

FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 3): A United Kingdom section of the
“World’s League for the Rights of Men” [Aequitas Weltbund für Männerrechte,
Vienna] has been formed and letters have been sent to the three party leaders
drawing attention to various “inhustices” which the League considers men are
subject to.

Among the aims of the League, branches which are established
in Vienna, Berlin, Munich, and other Continental centres, is the form of
lawrelating to divorce. It is urged,
for instance, that the circumstances of a divorced woman should revert to her
own nationality and abandon the name and title of the husband from who she is
divorced.

In matters of education the League asks that boys in State
schools over seven years of age shall be taught only by men teachers; that
children should be taught sufficient of the subject of anatomy to safeguard
their own health; that instruction on “sex matters and their perplexities”
should be given in schools by qualified and competent instructors; and that
there should also be instruction in the simple laws of the country.

“We are not an ‘anti-feminist’ League,” said the general
organizing secretary, Mr. Geoffrey Kimber. “We are simply
‘anti-ultra-feminist.’ We are against the masculine woman who thinks she can
take any man’s job, no matter what it is, and do it better than he can.”

[Typo in original – “there form of law” – has been corrected
to “the form of law.” Also “from who she is divorced.” Has been corrected to
“from whom she is divorced.”]

***

NOTE: Following is a article written in a sardonic tone as
was common for many English language reports on the early men’s rights activism
efforts.

***

FULL TEXT (Article 3 of 3): Women of London, let me
introduce you to M. Geoffrey Kimber, the bachelor who is going to protect all
us downtrodden men from your subtle and enslaving wiles (writes a Downtrodden Man
in a home paper).

A tough job, you say? Then all the more honour to Mr.
Kimber, who by starting a United Kingdom section of the World’s League for
Men’s Rights [Aequitas Weltbund für Männerrechte, Vienna] has taken on
womeankind single-handed, without a single tremor of fear!

What a hero is Mr. Kimber.

And how lucky for him that he hasn’t got to tell a wife what
he had done!

~ FLASHING EYES. ~

I had a long talk with Mr. Kimber at his Chelsea
headquarters, and was delighted to hear that women will not dominate men if he
can help it, and that he is going to chop off all the tentacles that women have
been stretching out to seize the privileges of Man, the Master.

In fact his grey-blue eyes positively flashed as he passed
his hand through his bushy, fair hair and said:

“We of the League are definitely against the ultra-masculine
woman who cuts her hair short and imitates a man. Do you as a man realize how
many of them there are about?”

“Alas!” I said, sympathetically.

He re-arranged a stack of propaganda on his table. “We have
got to fight,” he said, with the utmost firmness. “And my goodness, we are up
against something.

“There are four or five high organizations for women, and
not one for men. Women want everything changed in their favour. What has been
done to help men?

“Nothing,” I answered, “only please don’t quote me as saying
so.”

“We want fair play for men,” said Mr. Kimber, emphatically.
“Look at the divorce laws. They are unjust to men. And look at the divorce
laws. They are unjust to men. And look at everyday life in London. See how
women trade on men’s chivalry.

~ INSULT TO INJURY. ~

‘That tradition that a man should give up his seat to a
woman in a bus is all wrong. I would give up my seat to a woman in a bus is all
wrong. I would give up my seat to an old woman or an old man, to a woman with a
baby or a man with a baby, but as far the rest – why, I reckon I am just as
tired at the end of the day as any woman.

“But what do women say? They say: ‘Some fool will give us a
seat,’ and get on a crowded bus.”

Mr. Kimber’s eyes positively glinted.

“Woman,” he said, “not only wants to mother the race, she
wants to manage it as well.

“I am afraid men will deteriorate if things go anas they are. They will; get weak and
spineless, while women will become masculine.

Why – tell me this, as a man – why do we allow women to
teach boys in schools when they are older then seven?”

“Ah!” I said, cautiously.

“The boys become feminine,” he said.

Mr. Kimber declared sorrowfully that already women were forgetting
how to cook.

“But don’t imagine that we are out to smash women
altogether,” he said. “Are we against women going into the professions, even
though we do prefer the womanly woman? Certainly not. We’re not fools.

~ A MENACE. ~

“We see the necessity for women policemen. But we are out
against the sort of educational woman who teaches girls to go in for so much
sport. They are a real menace.

“The ordinary London girl is not so dangerous. She simply wants a good time.
She likes to wear nice frocks, and go to theatres. But as for the others …”

Mr. Kimber, who has given up his work as a teacher to fight
the cause of downtrodden Man, and has begun by sending a letter to the three
Party leaders about it, is not such a confirmed bachelor as you might think.